


but none of it's as red as my love for you

by orphan_account



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Other Characters Are Mentioned, i guess??? i mean what even is canon at this point, tiny boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6442162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This just in: Damian Wayne, completely smitten. More at 11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but none of it's as red as my love for you

**Author's Note:**

> I listen to too much sad indie music and drink too much coffee. That's pretty much how this came about. I've also wanted to write Damian for awhile now!

"What are your opinions on the recent scandal between Wayne Enterprises and Lexcorp?" 

The reporter smiled, and it had the friendly glint of someone like Clark- clearly, she hadn't had time to morph into the shark-like creature like those whose mirthless, glimmering canine-baring smiles so often plagued Damian's family. 

"No comment," he said after a pause, pushing past the faltering young reporter and walking briskly away. Now why would he want to be involved in that conversation? He wasn't involved in the company or the decisions due to his own adamant refusal to be involved in the business side of his father’s legacy- it bored him, and his skill set was best utilized in a field relating to art (or the much more illegal and slightly more respected vigilante justice.)  He had just gotten back to the States after having been in France with Colin for a few months, anyway, so he hadn’t been keeping track of whatever foolishness the tabloids had concocted. Surely, if it were anything major, father, Grayson, or Drake would have contacted him about it. No, likely it was just a  reporter looking to trip him up into giving them a headliner. He glanced over his shoulder- she still stood frozen in place, as if her battered combat boots had frozen to the concrete, gawking- and continued down the sidewalk. 

Damian pursed his lips in thought. Maybe he should have accepted Alfred’s offer for a chauffeur, but it was a rare and precious sunny day in the fall of Gotham, and Damian had little fear of being approached walking down the streets of the city. If he was, well, he felt sorry for the attacker. It wasn't too often that he was harassed by reporters. His general demeanor, ever since childhood, had been so standoffish that the press had found it much easier to prey on, say, Dick, with his boyish charm and sex scandals, or even Jason- though that rarely happened since Jason died and came back, and was now, due to his own adamant refusal,not involved with the family in the public eye. The press, moreover, just simply didn't find Damian interesting. When he was a child, there were no scandals involving him that general civilians knew of, aside from his birth, and there was only so long they could report on that before interest waned- and oh, it waned eventually. 

Later, Damian was still a relative bore in their eyes. He wasn't really a boring individual, of course, in fact far from it- but he wanted to keep them thinking he was just a standoffish asocial artist type- all true, actually, with the added bonus of costumed vigilante. It was a wonder Colin put up with him. 

And if they were expecting him to be the Wayne heir, that too was quickly quashed. Damian used to quickly turn the subject to his recent paintings whenever it was brought up, making it clear that Wayne enterprises was not his role- that was Tim's, and Damian was more than happy to let him fend off the press.

Damian had simply never been the darling of the press the way that Tim was.Maybe it was because he didn't have a large role in Wayne industries, despite being Bruce's blood son- Tim had been front and center heading the company since his late teens, and Damian was content to leave him to the strenuous role in favor of full-time vigilantism, keeping the legacy of his father alive in a different facet, and traveling the world with his beloved for inspiration for his art. 

Damian was struck with a flashback to a few months prior. He and Colin had been staying, at Bruce’s expense, in a villa on the outskirts of Paris. They were collecting intel about a supposed human trafficking ring centered in the area while under the guise of being on an artistic sojourn, which, being home of the Louvre and past home of many artistic greats, wasn’t that far of a stretch of the imagination. 

It was mostly undercover work, so the pair had only been visible doing very innocuous and mundane things in the French city. One of those things, apparently, being having lunch at a café. Damian remembered it well, as he did everything. They had been talking, laughing, Damian stirring his café leche with a small silver spoon, Colin laughing and holding a scone in one hand, the other tangled with Damian’s underneath the table. Damian heard the click of a camera from somewhere behind him, and when he turned around he could see a wannabe-paparazzi scurrying away- greasy blond hair, stained blazer, cheap camera. Colin had implored him not to worry about it, and Damian, well. Damian was helpless when it came to Colin’s whims. 

His picture had been featured in some celebrity rag, and not even a relatively popular one. It was actually quite a flattering photo. Damian's eyes sparkled with a  rare mirth, and he was leaning forward slightly, as if to hear Colin better, who, in the photo, had his head thrown back in laughter, eyes squeezed shut, red hair swept across his forehead by the wind like a painter’s proud brushstroke. 

Page three, in the corner, prioritized after an affair scandal between reality television stars and a scare article or two, was the photo, and a small blurb of a factually incorrect caption: “Wayne heir sighted in Paris with unrefined lover.” 

He burned with rage that they had insulted, however lightly, his beloved; he had balled up the rag of a paper and thrown it at the wall. Colin had picked it up, placed it in the trash with the same grace as if he were placing an egg back in a nest, walked over to Damian , placed one hand on the small of his back and the other in his hair, and had pressed their lips together until Damian forgot how to be angry, how to be anything but in love. 

But it could have been much worse. He recalls the way the roses had dragged simple Kansas farm boy Connor Kent through the mud when he became engaged to Tim drake- something which still occasionally happened, despite the pair being a solid couple in the media for years now. Connor could handle it though. He knew that when marrying in a family of vigilantes- the thought made him smile as he pushed open the door to a small shop, thinking of Colin. A little copper-hued bell tinkled upon his entrance. 

He was actually out to get some cat food for Alfred- not Pennyworth, but the feline of the same name. It wasn’t an urgent excursion, but Damian wanted an excuse to walk outside in the sun, a small luxury he afforded himself. On the way, still dwelling on the reporter, the small shop he had just entered captured his eye. It was a florist’s shop, family run by the looks of things. A cart outside held assortments of all kinds of flowers, ferns hung from the awning just above it, and a sign hung on the chipped gold doorknob- open. 

He looked around the shop, thankful he wasn’t recognized- he had a distinctive face, and some civilians kept up with tabloids and- Damian wrinkled his nose- reality television- enough to know him on sight, no matter his valiant efforts to stay out of the limelight. His beloved didn't have to deal with much of the press. Maybe it was because, when not next to Damian, he could pass for a regular Gothamite. 

Maybe Tim had paved the way, set a precedent or something, because Colin had been introduced into the family with little hubbub, which Damian was grateful for, especially considering that they could have made Colin out to be less than what he was due to his orphan status. 

Colin wasn’t lesser than Damian, and the fact that some people thought he was filled him with a searing, red-hot, all-encompassing rage. Colin always brushed slights off so easily, and he liked to joke that Damian acted like Colin himself, turning into his own version of Abuse whenever someone insulted Colin. 

In truth, he had entered the flower shop with Colin in mind, maybe even subconsciously. Damian’s family, Dick especially, constantly teased Damian about Colin. 

“I cannot believe demon spawn even has feelings. I was starting to think you’re a robot or something,” Jason would say, ruffling Damian’s hair- oh, how he hated that, a mockery of his diminutive height. He had a growth spurt during puberty that equalled him up to Colin, who had then proceeded to quickly surpass Damian, and well… Suffice it to say that growth spurt never replicated itself. 

He put his siblings out of mind, as with the reporter, and examined an arrangement of multicolored carnations. He sniffed, deeming them too plebeian for his beloved. As if on cue, a balding man in a green apron hurried in from what, presumably, was a storage room or something of the sort at the rear of the shop. 

“I’d be happy to help you with anything today, sir!” He seemed jolly, if a bit unkempt. His wire-rimmed glasses slid down his perspiring nose, and he slid them up with a pudgy finger. With the smile, the robust belly, and the candy-apple cheeks, he reminded Damian a bit of Santa Claus. 

“I was doing fine on my own,” replied Damian, a bit cooly. 

The shopkeeper anxiously straightened his apron, wringing his hands a bit, and Damian noticed him glance out the door. “Sorry ‘bout that, ah, normally- Pamela’s on vacation, it’s just,” he gestured apologetically at himself with one hand, and flung out the other towards the flowers. Damian pushed back a hint of embarrassment that threatened to creep up on him. 

“I assure you, I’m fine,” he said, trying to inject a more positive inflection to his voice, and smiling a bit to assuage the man’s anxiety. 

It seemed to do the trick. “Looking for something for that special lady in your life?” He asked, waggling his bushy grey eyebrows, affable once again. Damian bit back a grimace. “Or fellow?” The man cast a look around the shop, completely blasé. Damian let out a huff of laughter. 

“I think I have just the thing, young man,” he said, turning around and hustling away. From a nearby shelf, he produced an obscenely large bouquet of red roses with an expectant grin. 

Damian smiled, shaking his head. “Not quite… red is good, but maybe not…” He didn’t have to finish his sentence; the man had already turned back around and was rustling about the bouquets. “Not roses? Good call, good good, basic….. Classic, yes! But expected…..” He was muttering, tuning Damian out, completely absorbed in his work. “Special someone needs special flower!”

He turned back around, presenting a breathtaking red and purple bouquet of violet irises, crimson lilies and rosy-pale chrysanthemums tying it all together. Damian’s eyes widened, and the man’s grin did the same. 

“Perfect,” he breathed, “I’ll take them.”  The man smiled, nodding happily. 

Damian tipped about twice what the bouquet was worth, making the man’s round face flush tomato-red, or perhaps a more fitting analogy- as red as the flowers, now in Damian’s hand. He gave a little wave as he walked out the door, bell jingling again, stepping out into the street. The sun was beginning to set, and the orange ball was surrounded by scarlet. Pink tinged the other parts of the sky, still smeared with clouds- there was never really a cloudless day in Gotham- but they were nebulous, streaking the sky with their coffee-creamer haze. 

Cat food could wait. He would get home before the sun set, so he could admire the color on the walk home, so he could admire the red Colin would undoubtedly turn when he presented them to him. 


End file.
